


raindrops on roses (and whiskers on kittens)

by SeveralRainyDays (orphan_account)



Series: college series [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Coming of Age, Crying, Hurt, Light Angst, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-16 06:22:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21503308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/SeveralRainyDays
Summary: Sometimes, once you leave the bubble of high school, you lose relationships with people you once thought were your best friends.
Series: college series [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1268591
Kudos: 12





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> ayyy guess who's back  
> yup its me, your favorite never updating author  
> i already have all the chapters for this planned out so guess who's writing a chapter fic that will actually be finished :)  
> ME!  
> Enjoy y'all

_ Prelude _

_ “An introductory piece of music, most commonly an orchestral opening to an act of an opera, the first movement of a suite, or a piece preceding a fugue.” _

___________________

High school graduation.

Something almost everything looks forward to, until it’s there. Then, the sudden crushing realization that you’re not going to see your friends everyday anymore, the sudden realizations that your friends are going to be hours upon hours away from you, they all come crashing upon you.

It scares Jaemin.

While everyone is sobbing into each other’s shoulders, holding their diplomas with pride, Jaemin can’t help but wonder what will happen to everyone. Jaemin is staying close to home, but Haechan is going to be over 4 hours away by plane, 12 by car. Haechan always brightened his days and just made life a little easier sometimes. Haechan would always play stupid pranks on people and one time even caught a teacher that everyone hated in one.

He wonders if he’ll ever get to see his best friends. The closest anyone will be is two hours by car and that would be Jisung and Chenle, who are going to the same college. That's… still just so far. He tries to reason with himself, saying that they’ll meet halfway, but Jisung and Chenle don’t have their licenses, and he doubts they’ll get a taxi for an hour drive. Jisung is going to major in dance of course. It wasn’t a surprise to anyone with how much passion the boy has for it and how amazing he is at it. It completely entrances everyone as soon as he steps on stage. 

And where Jisung goes, Chenle follows. They’ve always been attached to the hip and are complete troublemakers. Even though Chenle is a troublemaker, no one can deny that the boy is bright. He was in the top of the class, only beaten by Mark, who was just a freak at nature in general. Chenle is majoring in mathematics with a minor in dance. Jaemin just wonders why you’d want to torture yourself with a math major.

He looks over and watches Mark. He never was insanely close to the man as he was always working, working, and working. Mark never took breaks and piled so much on his plate that Jaemin wonders how the boy is still even alive. It payed off, Jaemin supposes, Mark’s got a full-ride scholarship to some school out in the country. He’s pretty sure that Mark is majoring in business, which is just such a Mark thing to do, but he isn’t 100% sure. He seems so happy, his glossy eyes just seem to be sparkling as he hugs Jeno.

Jeno. Patient and kind Jeno is going off to major in education. It makes sense, he does love kids. Personally, Jaemin thinks that they’re the spawn of the devil. However, Jaemin was always willing to listen to his problems and was amazing at calming him down. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do without them.

Last of them all is Renjun. He was another one of Jaemin’s amazing people leaving him. He’s majoring in English, which surprises him to a degree, but also Renjun is so amazing and smart that learning another language is probably not that hard for him.

Before he knows it, he’s in the bedroom that he’s spent the last 18 years of his life in. It’s frightening that he’s considered grown up, an adult who can legally make his own decisions. He still feels like he’s thirteen years old and crying under his bed about his F on his math test and his never clearing acne. It’s so weird being considered “grown up”. What does being grown up even mean? Because he certainly doesn’t feel like whatever the definition is. 

He’s looking at tokens and mementos that contain memories of his youth, memories of him and his friends who are now adults. They used to be so young and it scares Jaemin that they are no longer in their youth. Gathering boxes and stuffing them in his car before heading off to university. He’s only forty minutes away, but it feels like a lifetime as he watches his childhood home fade in the distance.

College.

What a scary thing.


	2. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaemin has to get used to college, but he just really doesn't think he fits in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another update? miracles truly. anyways no beta yet again bc im lazy and the last chapter will be up tmmr bc it's done (surprising, yet again)

Interlude

_ “A pause between the acts of a play.” _

_ ______________ _

It’s move in day. Jaemin decided to get a double room because it was cheaper and he was low on funds. He’s scared. A roommate that he has no prior knowledge of, someone who he will have to live with for the next year.

A lot of thoughts ran through his mind as he checks his texts. The group chat is blowing up. Everyone had already left and went to their respective college. ack of friends that are usually surrounding him. He shifts his weight to his other foot as his phone lights up again. Quickly, he types a message before he heads into the dorm building.

**Jaemin: meeting my new roommate, wish me luck y’all**

He doesn’t bother to check the responses and decides to head inside. His fingers dig into his skin, a nervous habit he was never capable of breaking.

Eventually he works up the will to start walking up the stairs that will eventually lead him to his new roommate. Opening it slowly, he braces himself.

The man that he sees is disheveled, but he supposes most college kids are. He’s taller than Jaemin and he’s a bit on the stockier side.

“Hey man, I’m just letting you know I probably won’t be here often.” 

Jaemin steps back, slightly surprised. Well, it’s nothing that he minds, more space to himself, he supposes.

What a great college start.

Eventually college begins, his roommate rarely shows up to their shared room. It’s boring, classes that is. He licks his lips. Vaguely he wishes he was smoking cigarettes and riding a motorcycle without a destination in mind. Dreams, he supposes, dreams that will never come true.

He meets Ten somewhere along the way, at a gas station near his dorm room if he can recall correctly. Ten at the time is looking for an ankle brace he thinks, or maybe it was a knee one? It’s all a blur.

They begin to hang out and it pains him when he finds that Ten is oh so similar to his wonderful Chenle. Loud and no filter, yet amazing at dancing. It pains him. Ten is just so much like Chenle, but also just so, so not like his Chenle.

Ten eventually introduces him more people. Lots of people actually, however Jaemin was never much of a partier. He only has a couple friends. Jungwoo, Yuta, Doyoung, and obviously Ten.

He’s met all the others through Ten, who surprised him at first with how social he was. He seemed to know everyone and everything. Honestly, Jaemin never knew that someone was capable of memorizing so many people’s names.

Jaemin’s eventually too comfortable. The ignored texts from his old groupchat don’t pain his as much anymore and he’s beginning to become lazy in his classes.

It’s starting to hurt his grades.

And like any normal human being, Jaemin freaks out. Everything goes instantly down the drain and he feels like he’s suffocating. Him being able to attend college is all relying on the scholarship that he was awarded. He can’t afford to lose it. He’ll be out on the streets and won’t have a stable career for the longest time.

Before he knows it, he’s crying in one of the remote communal bathrooms that nobody knows about. He can’t help it, he’s stressed after seeing his grades drop.

Doyoung, of course, walks in. He sits down next to Jaemin and tells him that he’s doing fine, that there is still time to improve his grades, that he can help. Pats him on the back, pulls him up and tries to calm him down.

All Jaemin can remember is Jeno doing the exact same thing. Patient, calm Jeno sitting next to him, patting his back on his worst days.

He has to stop thinking like this. He has new friends, he should be happy.

So why isn’t he?

It’s suffocating thinking about all the unread texts and missed calls. It pains him, and it’s been months upon months but Jaemin still feels like the wound is open and bleeding. Picked at again and again, it can’t close. It hurts to know that Jisung and Chenle are probably having the time of their lives, dancing it away. That Mark and Renjun are studying hard, and excelling at it. Jeno is spending time doing what he wants, Haechan is probably playing games late at night up until the early hours of dawn.

That they’re all doing fine without him. That they all have their lives together and Jaemin doesn’t even know what he wants to major in. He feels forgotten.

Ten helps him get back on his feet. He reminds him that he has friends here at college and that it isn’t impossible to make new friends. That he isn’t stuck like gum on the ground.

But Jaemin drowns anyways.

He goes to parties and he slips further. Ten drags him out late at night to go smoke cigarettes on the patio and to have late night conversations. He wakes up some mornings with headaches so splitting after not being able to recall his name the previous day.

Doyoung chastises him the next mornings, handing him ibuprofen and telling him that he has a class that he has to catch. Yuta will sometimes wake him up on days that he wasn’t out late to drag him out to the campus gym at five in the morning (God, how sometimes he hates Yuta.) Jungwoo will laugh at his misery and introduce him to some of his new friends, Taeyong is one of them. For as shy as Jungwoo looks, he’s quite the social person. Eventually Taeyong will start to hang out at Ten’s apartment right off campus —everyone does, it’s a lot easier since Ten has his own space and a lot of it. Taeyong works a lot of jobs, and he never seems like he has a break, always studying when he has the time even when he’s at Ten’s house.

The only time Jaemin thinks he hasn’t seen the man studying is when he’s cooking in Ten’s apartment because according to Taeyoung, everyone besides him and Doyoung will probably burn down the house.

It takes him a while to realize that he isn’t drowning, he thought he was because of the obscene amount of parties Ten had dragged him to, but he honestly felt like he was living. His car had broken down and he was about to buy a motorcycle to fulfill his once what seemed impossible dreams. (He did already get his motorcycle license, thank you very much.)

He feels like he’s a new person, no longer constricted by what high school thought he should be. Jaemin feels like he can finally like what he wants to like and hate what he hates without being scared of the repercussions.

He’s flying. Nothing can stop him. Sometimes he’ll drag Ten out on late nights after Ten is drunk out of his mind, light some cigarettes and go on a drive. He loves it. He no longer is the polo-wearing high school teenager who worries about his acne day in and day night. He’s thriving, his grades are higher than every after Doyoung had yelled at him about going to too many parties and he just feels like nothing can stop him.

The lost texts from his old friends are drowned out by his new chaotic, but well liked lifestyle. He gets a job with Taeyong at a cafe, where he watches the girls whispering about how good looking Taeyong is and how he seems to live at the cafe. It makes him happy.

And when his old friends finally text in the groupchat, asking if everyone is interested in hanging out over the summer, he doesn’t mind. It doesn’t hurt anymore.


	3. Postlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay last chapter kids :)

Postlude

_ “A concluding piece or movement.” _

He has his new friend group which has been slowly expanding, the recent addition of the giant from America, Johnny, has proved that. Yuta has finally stopped dragging him out at unreasonable hours to go work out and instead has moved his tendencies on to Johnny, who doesn’t seem to mind at all. Taeyong is trying out a new recipe tonight and has finally decided to let Jaemin into the kitchen, after promising a billion times that he won’t burn the pasta like Ten has, multiple times. Doyoung scoffs when he hears this and says something about how Ten can’t cook for the life of him before Jungwoo grabs Doyoung and starts to drag him off to play video games. Ten comes walking in, chaotic as ever, with a couple of expensive looking bottles of wine and a smirk on his face. 

“Ten, if you get drunk in my house again, on wine of all things, I will leave you on the street without hesitation.”

“Doyoungie,” Ten whines, “this isn’t even your house. It’s mine.”

Doyoung just stares at him and flips him off before heading to the other room with Jungwoo.

Jaemin laughs, he feels free.

Jaemin eventually finds himself staying in the dorms over the summer. He’s got an internship with one of his professors and even though home is so close with Chenle, Jisung, Mark, Jeno, Renjun, and Haechan, he just doesn’t see himself going back.

He still loves them, but no longer are they his priority. They aren’t the people he’s going to text when he’s on the brink of losing his scholarship to get scolded or when he gets drunk because of Ten’s bad habits of partying way too often. He has new friends and it’s hard to keep strong friendships with people he doesn’t see anymore.

They’ve been aiming to meet up though later this week, and who is Jaemin to say no?

**Author's Note:**

> yay fun times, anyways sorry about not using all the character i am lazy  
> this way kinda based off me bc i transferred schools this year and the depression smacked me in the face :)  
> also sorry the pacing of this story is so bad someone yell at me to go fix it when i have time


End file.
